4. Full Name : Rashipuram Krishnaswami Iyer
Narayan Swami
Date of Birth : 10 October 1906
Place of Birth : Rashipuram in Madras
Father’s Name : Krishna Swami
Mother’s Name : Gnanambal
Wife’s Name : Rajam Narayan
Children: Hema Narayan
Died on :13 May 2001.
5. Early life
RK Narayan was born in Madras,
but he settled down in Mysore. His
Mother tongue is Tamil, but in
Mysore, the regional language is
Kannada
6. School life
After completing his early education, he went
to England for Higher Education. But he
failed in High school examination in 1924
and in intermediate examination. He
graduated from the Maharaja College,
Mysore. He was fond of reading different
types of books and listening stories. He
worked as a clerk to support his family. But
he was not satisfied. So, he accepted the
work of a teacher in a village school.
7. Literary career
R K Narayan’s literary career began with his short
stories, which appeared in “The Hindu” newspaper.
He began to work as the Mysore correspondent of
Justice’, a Madras based Newspaper
In a career Spanning over 70 years, RK Narayan
published 14 novels, over 200 short stories, a
memoir, two travel books, innumerable essays and
two plays.
Most of his novels and short stories were located in the
fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He is often
like Thomas Hardy, whose works are set in Wessex
First novel Swami and Friends had a Semi –
autobiographical episodic narrative
He is credited with making India accesible to rhe
Western World through his literature.
8. Major Works
Novel
The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
The Dark Room (1938)
The English Teacher (1945)
The Financial Expert (1952)
Mr Sampath (1949)
Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
The Guide (1958)
The man – eater of Malgudi ( 1962)
The vendor of Sweets (1967)
9. Malgudi Days (1941)
Cyclone and other stories (1943)
An Astrologer and other stories
A Horse and Two Goats and Other
Stories (1970)
God’s Demons and Other Stories (1965)
Collection of
short stories
10. Essay - Writer’s Nightmare (1988)
Brought out abridged Modern versions of the Indian Epics
‘The Ramayana ’ and ‘The Mahabharata’.
Themes
Ironies of Indian daily existence, education, women and
her status in the society, myth, tradition and modernity,
appearance and reality…
‘An Astrologer’s day’ the titular Story of his fourth
collection of stories ‘An Astrologer ‘s Day and Other
Stories’ is a suspense tale of revenge, retribution, fate
and irony.
11. Achievements
The Sahitya Academy Award for The Guide in
1960
The Padma Bhushan in 1964
The Honorary D Literature by the University of
Leeds
The AC Benson Medal by the Royal Society of
Literature in 1980
The Padma Vibhushan in 2000
He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha which is
